Four Walls

She had invited a man to her home. 

The reality of the situation had not hit her until she had given the invitation, agreed to the plan, and left the Pigeon. It had sunk in slowly, and then all at once as she apperated to the front doorstep of Rookwood Manor. 

Kipling Pearsons was coming to her home. 

Katarina had set up her easel in the conservatory for the day. Despite the return of summer weather, the Rookwood men had remained mostly dispersed around the globe, leaving Katarina and the elves to occupy the mansion. While the quiet could be haunting, it had also given Katarina the freedom to push her personal bubble out of the East Wing and into other areas of the home. While she still avoided the startlingly vast main dining and ball rooms, other spaces such as the pool, library, and back patio had become new favorites that she had never fully appreciated while occupied. 

The painting she was working on had nothing to do with plants. It was a ballerina, or perhaps two or three. They were blending, abstracted with the help of swirling skirts and faces in motion. 

This was not the painting that Kipling was coming for. She had done a series of Monet-inspired paintings of the garden, focusing on the sky and tracking it's colors throughout the day. The collection was soft and pretty in the sincerest sense of the word, though the technical skill behind it was still displayed plainly. Katarina was pleased with the results and as a reward to herself she had begun playing with the splashy color and shapes of her new piece as she waited. 

The first part of the morning had been marked by waiting. Katarina had ate her breakfast cautiously, done her hair quietly, gone for a brief walk, all while listening closely for the ring of a doorbell or crunch of gravel underfoot. It was only after she had spent a good half hour with her paints that Katarina had been able to begin to relax, immersing herself into the hues until there was no room left in her for worry or stress. 

He was going to see Katarina Rookwood in her natural habitat, surrounded by the walls she had grown up in, enclosed in their safety and familiarity. He was going to see Katarina's baseline, the point she could always return to because it was how she was conditioned to be. Kip had grown to know Katarina more than he would have guessed from their first meeting. However, it was all from his own deduction, rarely from her admission. And, considering how long and how frequently she had been joining him and his friends in the spare room above the Ugly Pigeon, he knew surprisingly little of the woman who was privy to his private thoughts.

Because, that was the thing. Night after night, Kenna poured out her feelings of uncertainty and exhaustion, and Yuri shared wisdoms, and Rory raved against the wrongs happening in the country, and Remy demonstrated a great capacity of knowledge for a man so driven by his animalistic urges... and Kip... Well, Kip had told her his hopes. She was one of the few people in the world who knew that Kipling Parsons, a nobody that happened to have a brain, one day intended on earning the most powerful position in the wizarding world.

Yet, he couldn't tell the name of her siblings.

He, of course, knew her father. There were few Rookwoods running about nowadays, and he was smart enough to put the pieces together. Augustus Rookwood was formidable, to say the least, and that formidable blood ran through Katarina's veins. It was hard to imagine, because everything about her was soft. But he had seen the sharpness in her too. The night at the gallery, he had seen resistance he had not expected in someone so soft-spoken.

To put it lightly, it was starting to get to Kip how little he really knew about his companion.

So, the invitation was accepted readily and here he stood, having walked up the way of the magnificent estate. How could someone as small as Katarina even be found in such a large place? He reached up and knocked on the door, a canvas bag clenched in his hand. His blue eyes scanned the door, curious as to who would answer.

There it was - the solid ring of a knock. The sound echoed through the house, bouncing from tiled floors to marble stairs, to the tippy-tops of ceilings as Kipling's presence was announced. Katarina let her brush fall into a water glass with a ka-ploosh and smoothed out her dress. She stood but did not leave, hovering by the door-frame in indecision. It was a rare occasion that Katarina had seen one of her family members receive someone at the door; the task of bringing guests into the house had always fallen to the house elves.

Indeed, while the house elves were slower than normal, they were there within a minute. The large wooden doors swung open to reveal an aging house elf whose small, wrinkly form did almost nothing to block a view into the expansive entrance hall. The creature's large eyes blinked as it looked up at Kipling.

"Can Topsy help the young Mister? Family is not here."

In the conservatory, Katarina took two steps back towards her easel. Then three towards the chair by the windows. A pause, then one towards the door. Could she meet him half way? Or was it entirely best to just continue waiting here. Either way, Katarina could feel an suspense building within her. Even within her own brain she could not pinpoint what exactly the source of her anxiety was. There was nothing innately wrong about having Kip be invited in but Katarina could not shake the sense that nothing positive could come from this meeting of worlds.

When Kipling's purpose was explained Topsy set off to lead him through the maze of hallways and rooms that was Rookwood Manor. Through the great hall and into the chapel gallery, where mirrors, paintings, and ottoman's were the only decorations. From the hall, Topsy opened one of the identical wooden doors to reveal the greenery of the conservatory and a prim Katarina positioned at the table by the window.

"Miss Katarina, you have a visitor."

"Yes, thank you." Katarina acknowledged, suddenly finding it much easier to look at and address the elf than her guest. She stood and stepped closer to Kip, letting her eyes flash up to his to give an unintentionally nervous smile.

"Can Topsy get the Mistress anything else?"

"Would you like anything?" Katarina offered, her exceptions as a hostess suddenly taking precedent. "Tea or..?"


OOC: For my future reference, the floor plan

Kip waited patiently on the grand doorstep, rocking from heel to toe and back again. He buttoned his coat jacket, before thinking better of it and unbuttoning it again. He already looked a bit more dressed than he would have preferred, but he couldn't help it. A meeting at Hogwarts had been called - a bit last minute for his taste, by the way - to discuss curriculum for the following year. Kip had been a bit displeased to note that he was in the minority, a very small minority, that had completed his curriculum proposal for the following year. He had brought to revisions as well, finding that some of the terms that were laid forth in the meeting complicated his original plan.

But with that all settled now, Kip was looking forward to an errand that had very little to do with business. Though it was a transaction of sorts, Kip supposed one might call this a social call. Not that he was calling on the young Rookwood.

A spindly elf answered the door and Kip tilted his head, taking a step back to better gaze into the little creature's face, smiling kindly. "How do you do, Topsy? I had an appointment with Miss Rookwood regarding one of her paintings." The elf looked deeply confused at this greeting but slowly nodded, her ears flopping a bit.

Kip followed behind the elf, folding his hands behind his back, tilting his chin up a bit as he took in the grandeur. It was a very large home for such a small woman, a very old home for such a new life. There would be something magical and historic about the manor, if there wasn't something so sterile and cold about it. There were glimpses of rugs that looked centuries old, tapestries that belonged in museums, bricks that would have been ruins had the meticulous, caring hands of man to keep them from becoming desolate.

He loitered in the hall, turning to gaze at a small painting depicting some sort of Roman scene. He heard Topsy speak and the door open and he turned, his eyes falling on Katarina. For a moment, the air in his longs felt a bit... chilly. But that probably had to do with the old manor.

"Perhaps just some tea," Kip said, glancing from Katarina to the elf. "If it'a not too much trouble." He smiled.